Who Do You Think You Are?

Dan Waddell - Discovering the Heroes and Villains in your Family TV tie-in edition

This is an accessible and modern guide to the hugely popular art of tracing your family history. Published to tie in with the BBC2 series, the book is packed with practical guidance on locating records and researching different eras and topics. It also includes celebrity histories and a directory of the best current Internet resources. Who Do You Think You Are? is a fresh, contemporary take on family history and tracing your family tree.

Suitable for the hobbyist and the more experienced researcher, it incorporates both basic information on tracing your ancestors plus theme-based sections allowing more detailed and focused research to follow up on family stories and characters.

The first section of the book is a concise and comprehensive summary of basic research tools - how to locate and use a range of records and information to track down your family and to provide the framework for more detailed research.

The main part of the book looks at key themes such as social history, occupations, military connections, immigration and emigration, and looking for skeletons in the cupboard (bigamy, illegitimacy, lunacy and crime - far more interesting than tracing your family back to William the Conqueror). With information, tips and stories about the historical background and law changes of the past, this is a fresh way of approaching family history and developing research into the stories and characters unearthed.

Finally, a comprehensive resources section provides the most up-to-date sources for common themes and localities - with assessments of the best Internet sources for all types of research. Also featuring celebrity family history stories and lots of extraordinary tales from ordinary people, this book is a fascinating practical guide to this absorbing and intriguing hobby.

About The Author

Dan Waddell is a journalist and author who lives in London. He writes about the media and popular culture for a range of newspapers and magazines, including the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. This is his tenth book.

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